Stop Here by Beverly Gologorsky Page B

gigantic. He recognizes the R&R quality, charcoaled too quickly in some godforsaken place; and wants to ask if it’s how her husband really looked but decides not to.
    The bed is queen-size, the pillows numerous, waiting. He slips out of his shoes, turns down the yellow-and-green-flowered cover. He stretches out. He’s lost it.
    When she slides in beside him, he remembers hearing about men so exhausted they begin dreaming before their eyes close. But once more he inhales the sweet scent of her.
    â€œWho are you? Why do you care, or something along those lines?” he asks.
    â€œWho says I care. You’re suffering.”
    â€œIt’s a motherish thing?”
    â€œYou’re older than me, I can’t be your mother.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œIt’s probably a mistake, but I need . . . I want to be adventurous, a little.”
    He palms the cool smoothness of her cheek. “You’re wonderful, hauntingly . . .” But a weariness he doesn’t want shoots lead through his body. “I can’t believe this,” he mumbles—not that she wouldn’t notice his limp prick. He strokes her hair, the silky strands tangle between his fingers, then subsides like a ship in harbor.
    â€¢ • •
    Opening his eyes at an unfamiliar ceiling, the shades drawn, he remembers. Is he mortified or contrite? She’s not beside him. Should he call her name? Her husband stares at him without affection.
    He walks into the living room. The TV is on, the volume low. She’s dressed in a long black skirt, silky, with a white blouse open deep at the neck.
    â€œDrink before dinner?” she asks.
    â€œDinner?”
    â€œIt’s nearly six.”
    â€œYou’re kidding.”
    â€œNo,” she says so seriously he’s embarrassed.
    â€œWhere’s your son?”
    â€œHelping Dina next door. I told him you collapsed, and why. He offered to look online and see what he could find out about Witnesses for Peace.”
    â€œYou’re extraordinary.” He drops on the couch beside her. Slides an arm around her slim shoulders, dips his chin in her soft hair, done up in some fancy knot. His fingers wander inside her blouse, find her velvety breast . . . With the heat of her throat against his lips, he cradles her head, maneuvers her legs onto the couch; she curls her body to make room for his. He thinks to say a few lovely words, but her eyes are closed, her limbs wrapping his. He enters a land where only distraction and satisfaction exist.
    â€¢ • •
    He watches her attempt to organize the mess he’s made of her outfit. “I could offer to have it cleaned, but it’ll only happen again.”
    â€œWhy was that so exciting?” She sounds genuinely surprised.
    â€œUnexpected love. It’s the best kind.”
    â€œHow would you know?” She searches his face.
    â€œI wouldn’t.”
    â€œIs dinner still happening?” she asks, but he can sense her withdrawing.
    â€œTonight and tomorrow, if you want?” He means it.
    â€œBobby’s not always going to be conveniently busy.”
    â€œLet’s take him with us tomorrow.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHe knows me from the diner, remember?”
    â€œI’m going to change.”
    â€¢ • •
    His time with Ava yesterday gave him courage. His car glides into a space beneath a huge tree, which he wants to identify as oak, but he wouldn’t know. Hidden by afternoon shadows, they can’t see him. Then again these people don’t gaze out windows; they have security do that. He stares at the estate. If the house were any nearer the water it would float. The last time he saw this much property he was mustering out of the Marines. But the base was a flat, ugly, brown expanse, dotted with huts that passed for barracks. That anything this lush exists a mere twenty miles from the cheek-by-jowl places he sees daily is staggering.
    He replays the voice