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The man was lying naked on the rumpled, white hotel sheets with the lights dark. The blue glow from the television set, the sound muted but the light flickering, cast moving shadows over the hills and valleys created by bedding and muscle and bone. He lay half slumped against the headboard with one knee bent, the crumpled pillows behind him providing little support. In his dark hair, the first few wisps of silver were beginning to show at his temples. His skin glowed in the flickering light, perspiration drying on an end-of-summer tan. He gazed at the television impassively, occasionally lifting a heavy glass of ice and vodka to his lips.
There was a woman sleeping beside him, or pretending to sleep, he wasn't sure, her eyes closed, her breathing even and deep, one arm flung above her head. Her dark curls looked black against the too-white of the sheets and her face; with its Slavic looking cheekbones, it had too many shadows for him to discern her expression. She flinched slightly when his cellphone rang on the nightstand beside him. He picked it up, the glow of the LCD flashing green onto his face, mixing with the blue from the television, another depth in the water of a glacial lake. He looked down at the woman who had opened her eyes without moving any other part of her body and was now regarding him coolly.
"It's Mark," he said, cocking a single eyebrow in her direction. She shrugged and rolled away from him, flicking her dark hair away from her neck, the single sheet over her pulling away, exposing the long curved line of her back. He sighed and pushed a button.
"Hello," the man answered.
"Stevie. Didn't know if you were on the road or not."
"Hey Mark. No, I got back on Tuesday."
"Are you still at work?"
"Yeah, still catching up."
"Can you watch the game there?"
"Yeah, I have it on in the background," he said, taking a hit off his vodka before putting it on the bedside table where it immediately began to form a ring of condensation.
The woman rolled back over toward him and stretched her long arm out across his body, brushing his hard abdomen, making him shiver, as she motioned for him to hand her the glass of vodka.
"Did you see the collision?" Mark asked.
"Looked like that hurt. Who hit the ball?"
"He was like the ninth-place batter. Who is that, Kennedy?"
"Don't know. Don't these guys talk to each other?"
"You know what's really sick? I can't help but think that Bernie would never have gotten to that ball in time. You just know that's going to be the play that kills them," Mark said.
They paused for a minute, watching the batter work the count.
"How's work?" Steve asked, glancing down at the woman.
"It's okay. Quiet this time of year. I get to the gym a lot."
"That's good. How are the boys?"
"They're good. David's going through a stage where he thinks it's funny to speak Latin, or his version of the language, in casual conversation. All I know is that my older brothers would have kicked the shit out of me if I'd tried that."
Steve laughed and the woman looked up at him sharply, her eyes narrowed. Steve squirmed slightly in the bed and reached out to take the drink back. He took a large gulp, swallowing the cold, bitter alcohol with a grimace. When he set it
"You know what else? She's gotten crazier and crazier in bed. After that last baby, it's like she's gone overboard."
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down again, he ran his fingers through his hair, agitated. Silence descended over the phone as he and Mark watched the next batter until Steve, like a child who can't resist picking at a scab before it's healed, asked, "How's Maria?"
The woman turned her face away from him as her eyes, already inscrutable, darkened with anger. There was a set to her jaw, a small muscle that worked at her temple, signs Steve had learned to read through unfortunate trial and error. He was perversely happy that she was pissed and resisted the urge to end the call.
"Mmmm. Not so great, actually. She's out tonight."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, it's some new thing of hers, she goes out and won't tell me who she's with. I come home to the babysitter and voicemail on my wife's cell. Says I'm not entitled to know her every movement. Says I go off to work and I'm gone the whole day and she never asks where I am. Jesus! Throw fucking strikes, will ya?"
Steve wished he had never asked, but knew it was too late to stop Mark once he had started in on Maria.
"I wish I had never let her quit her job," Mark said finally.
"Why's that?"
"She's too fucking smart. You know how educated she is. Most of the time she was working, she made more money than me. Hell, we moved to Tokyo for her job, remember? After Matthew was born, I mean, three boys in six years is a lot of kids, things were just too crazy at home. They needed her there." Mark paused. "Jesus Christ, that was a fucking strike. Just watch, Moose is going to fucking walk this guy."
"I don't get it," Steve said. "It's an elimination game and he's got Johnson and Wang ready to go. What's the hesitation?"
"Goddammed if I know. Things definitely started to go downhill when she stopped working. She got a little angrier every day, you know?"
"Sure, that can be a tough change. Have you talked to her about going back?"
"That's just it, she doesn't want to go back now. She left at the top of her game and if she went back now, it would be way down the ladder, and the kids are still pretty young and who's going to take them to the pediatrician when they get sick? The nanny? And every time we talk about it she gets this look in her eye like she fucking hates me, like she woke up one day and she was my wife and a mother to three kids and she isn't sure how it all happened."
"Sorry, man. That sucks."
"You know what else? She's gotten crazier and crazier in bed. After that last baby, it's like she doesn't want to be one of these women who doesn't care about doing it anymore, and so she's gone overboard in the other direction."
Steve glanced at the prone body next to him. She was lying with one arm propped on the bed, her head on her hand. One leg was bent
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He trailed the fingers that had been holding the glass, still cool and wet, down her stomach, then down between her legs.
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at the hip, her leg thrown over the other, so he was confronted with the length of her naked back and ass, and, if he sat up to take another drink and stretch his back, he would be able to see inside her.
"How far overboard?" Steve asked.
"You know, just always wanting to do something different, a little further out on the edge all the time. Not that I'm complaining. I mean, shit, how many guys you know are sorry their wife wants to have kinky sex? But it makes me wonder, you know? Maybe she's learning all this shit from some other guy?"
"She's smart," Steve said. "I'm sure she can think of new ways to get off all on her own." The woman started to get up off the bed, Steve reaching out a hand, grasping her arm and pulling her back. Her eyes were hard, nostrils flared slightly.
"Jesus Christ! Did you just see the human sieve on first base? Fucking Giambi."
"Take it easy, Mark."
"I know, I can't wait for it to be over. I can't take the anxiety anymore."
"The playoffs?" asked Steve.
"Of course the playoffs. What the hell did you think I meant?"
"Didn't know if you were still talking about Maria."
"Jesus, that too. Not the marriage. I just want her to be more like the Maria I married."
"Was she so different?" Steve thought about what she was like then. Was she warmer or gentler? All he can remember was thinking she was dangerous. The first time he had seen her, at a Christmas party Mark had brought her to, their fourth or fifth date only. She had walked in wearing a black dress. Her hair was long then. Her eyes were dark and unreadable, and she had been wearing red lipstick. He couldn't take his eyes off her lips, and she could tell. He had been embarrassed and had left the party early, ashamed to be coveting Mark's girlfriend.
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