“Palmer,” Desie said, changing the subject, “can I get on top now?”
It was three months before he brought the Polaroid camera into bed. Desie went along but she didn’t approve—the flash was annoying, as were Palmer’s stage directions. Moreover, the snapshots came out so blurry and shabbily composed that she couldn’t understand how her husband found them titillating. Did that make him a weirdo? After being with Andrew Beck, nothing short of a medieval mace and chain-mail suit would have seemed kinky to Desie.
She did, however, draw the line at cigars. Palmer wanted her to try one in the bedroom, before and possibly during sex.
“No chance,” Desie said.
“It’s that goddamn Bill Clinton, isn’t it? Him and his twisted bimbos, they’ve given the whole cigar scene a bad name. Honest, Des, all I want you to do is smoke one.”
“The answer is no, and it’s got nothing to do with the president.”
“Then what?” Palmer Stoat rattled off the names of several cigar-puffing movie starlets. “Come on,” he pleaded, “it’s a very erotic look.”
“It’s a very stupid look. Not to mention the nausea that goes with it.”
“Oh, Desie, please.”
“They cause cancer, you know,” she said. “Tumors in the soft palate. You find that erotic, Palmer?”
He never again mentioned cigar sex. But now: rhinoceros horns. Desie was appalled. Killing one was bad enough, but this!
Admittedly, she and Palmer hadn’t been making love so often. Desie knew why she wasn’t feeling amorous—she wasn’t happy with herself or the marriage; wasn’t even certain she still liked her husband all that much. And she was aware he seemed to have lost interest, as well. Maybe he kept girlfriends in Tallahassee and Washington, or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was being truthful when he said that the only reason he’d purchased the black-market rhino powder was to rekindle their romance.
Desie didn’t know what to do. Materially she had secured a good comfortable life; she was scared to think of starting over. But the emptiness in her heart was scary, too; scarier by the day. She didn’t view herself as one of those wives who could accept a marital chill as inevitable; pretend it wasn’t there, distract themselves with spas and overseas travel and home-improvement projects.
Or perhaps she could. To Desie, being alone sounded less appealing than being in a not-so-torrid marriage. Some of her friends had it worse; they had husbands who didn’t give a shit. At least Palmer was trying, or appearing to try. His hope for a two-day erection was either endearing or idiotic, depending on his true motives.
In any case, Desie was so infuriated by the way he ridiculed her kidnap story that she ordered him to sleep in one of the guest rooms.
“I’ll find you a shrink. The best in town,” Palmer Stoat told her. “Please, Des. You’re just a little confused.”
“I prefer to stay confused,” she said, “for now.” Firmly she closed the bedroom door in his face.
All of a sudden McGuinn quit eating and became lethargic. At first Twilly didn’t know why. Then he found the lint-covered cluster of antibiotic pills on the car floor, beneath the backseat. All this time the dog had been pretending to swallow—scarfing down the roast beef envelopes while somehow concealing the chalky tablets under his tongue. Then, when Twilly wasn’t looking, he’d spit them out.
So the stubborn mutt probably has a post-op infection, Twilly thought. From the phone book he picked a nearby veterinarian’s office. There the receptionist took out a clipboard and asked him some questions.
“Name of the pet?”
Twilly told her.
“Breed?”
“Labrador retriever.”
“Age?”
“Five,” Twilly guessed.
“Weight?”
“One twenty. Maybe heavier.”
“Is he neutered?”
“Check for yourself.”
“No thanks,” the receptionist said.
“See? Balls.”
“Why don’t you have him lie down again. Mr. Spree.”
“Down, boy,” Twilly said obediently.
“Would you like us to go ahead and neuter him?”
“I’m not the one you should be asking,” said Twilly.
“We’ve got a special this month on cats and dogs,” the receptionist told him. “You get a twenty-five-dollar rebate from the Humane Society.”
“Is that twenty-five per testicle?”
“No, Mr. Spree.”
Twilly sensed the Lab gazing up at him. “Cats and dogs only?”