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Sharon was always so quiet after sex. It bothered Russell to have such a ponderous, abstract weight settle around them both, all but erasing their climax and its resulting afterglow. As much as he hated to admit it, this was the way it had been ever since the beginning, even the first time they had lain, breathless and sweaty, on Sharon's two-thousand-dollar mattress among a sea of Egyptian cotton.
That cotton was a pillow, a cushion of air and softness below his naked body as he sat, slumped, on the edge of the bed. He wasn't thinking of anything in particular; his groin still tingled and felt cool from his and Sharon's drying fluids. It occurred to him that if he didn't head to the bathroom soon his sheath would crust over and he would have to deal with that special, male pain. He pinched himself: still wet. Okay.
He wanted a cigarette. No, he didn't really want a cigarette; he wanted the idea of a cigarette. Four years after quitting and his obsessive compulsion to smoke after sex still had hold of his subconscious. Jeannie had quit with him, had relapsed after a month, and got back on the bandwagon for good a month after that. They both had one pack at home: Newports for him, Camel Menthols for her. Both unopened, in the bottom drawer of their dresser, as reminders to never start it up again. Jeannie had said the kids should be reason enough, but after starting again she claimed she couldn't trust herself with just one reason.
Russell's fingers went to his ear, swiping by its outer curve swathed in dark grey fur. There was nothing there, he knew there wasn't, but he just needed to prove it to himself. A nervous gesture. An uncomfortable gesture.
He was going to break it off. He had to. He also had a feeling Sharon wouldn't mind as much as she should. Russell looked at the clock. It wasn't even noon, on a Tuesday morning. Fuck.
Behind him on the bed, Sharon's sheet-clad form writhed slowly, the movement like the silky fabric in which it was swathed. Her foot bumped his left buttock. "Sorry," she mumbled, sounding more half-asleep than satisfied. Turning as she yawned, her feline fangs shining dully in what light was allowed to filter in through the window, she raised her arms behind her head. Her breasts exposed themselves unapologetically, as if they again wanted to tempt Russell's libido into another lecherous romp. They did indeed look beautiful, now that they were still and on display, rather than vibrating like twin flans after a lovers' dinner at the finest Mexican restaurant in New York City.
The wolf clicked his tongue, trying to put some saliva back where it had dried up. He wanted Sharon to hug him, wanted to feel her arms around his shoulders, wanted her to tell him she needed him, that it would work out, that if they played their cards right Jeannie and Dirk would never find out, but wouldn't it just be karmic if they did. Jeannie and Dirk could go right along fucking each other like they had been for nine months, six of those months before Russell had found out, before Russell had told Sharon, before they had joined forces to seek revenge on their respective spouses that had never felt like revenge at all but more than anything like an exacerbation of the problem.
But somehow it had lasted three months. Three months of everybody cheating, and no one knowing the difference. So if they quit, if they brought it to Jeannie and Dirk, would that make everything normal again? Russell thought no, of course not, but even if his wife kept up her charade he still had two children for whom to set an example. That was the reason he told himself, at least. In all truth, the spark had completely extinguished between him and Sharon while it still existed between him and Jeannie. One relationship was worth saving.
"What are you thinking about?" asked Sharon. She was laying down again, her voice half-muffled by pillows. The wolf let himself fall onto his back, and the cheetah's hand settled over his stomach rising and falling as he breathed.
"I don't know. Just thinking," he lied. His whiskers told a different story, tickling the air around his snout. Sharon didn't know this was indicative of a lie, though. She hadn't been with him like Jeannie had.
"You're more transparent than that. I don't go to therapy twice a week just to spend money." Russell had a good idea that Sharon was just trying to play him. She was just as transparent as he; she may have come off as oblivious, but it was a fair bet she already knew what he was going to say.
Sighing again: "You don't see everything wrong here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't patronize me."
Sharon pulled her hand away, switching to her side and resting her head on her elbow. "I'm sorry," she looked down. "I guess I just didn't want to bring it up. Somehow I thought, if you started the conversation it wouldn't be my fault anymore."
"It's both our faults."
"If it makes it any better, you can blame Dirk and Jeannie."
"You know it doesn't. Besides, they didn't force us to do this."
"You can make it seem that way, though."
"Doesn't make it right." Sharon was just illustrating the truths they had already faced during the course of their affair. They were both intelligent adults, and neither were prone to fighting as much as the typical Manhattanite. Spouting off rhetoric and causalities were more their style. It was like boxing with a logic machine: intense but boring at the same time.
"No, I don't suppose it does."
The wolf rubbed his eyes with pads that smelled of Sharon's sex, and while the scent wasn't exactly sickening it wasn't pleasant either. It was...reminiscent. Strangely, he didn't feel dirty. Just aged.
"So, what do we do?" Russell pulled himself up to the headboard, crossing his legs. His finger went halfway to his ear again before he caught it. As much as he thought he needed a smoke, all it would do was make him cough.
"You want to stop, don't you?" Her voice was absolutely flat, something he'd never heard before. She was making it difficult for him to gauge his responses. He hated not being able to read people; not even looking into Sharon's yellow eyes would help.
"Don't expect me to believe you want to keep this up."
"No, Russ, I don't. It's not fair to Dirk and Jeannie. Even less fair to us. Do we both agree we made a mistake?"
"I think that's an accurate assumption. But what do we do?" The wolf was asking himself as much as he was asking Sharon. Even before, as he felt himself tying to her, the act he could never get Jeannie to do, he was thinking of ways to break it off. He was level-headed, Sharon was level-headed, and if they confronted their spouses with evidence right off the bat he hoped they'd be the same way. At best, a universal agreement to forgive and forget would keep their friendships going. Anything less would be awkward, even impossible.
"You know we all can't go on like this forever. It doesn't last," said Sharon. "We were immature and spontaneous. They are coworkers. It's not like we can go to the top of the tower and keep watch over them."
Russell snorted. "You think Dirk is capable of moving on?"
"Just as capable as Jeannie is." The truth was, the wolf didn't know how his wife would handle being confronted with her infidelity, or Russell's own revenge. She was an emotional being, given to too much empathy at times, but she was also emotionally weak. If Russell could convince her to forget the whole thing, and he had no doubt Dirk would give anything to have the same from Sharon, they might all be able to laugh about it a year from now. Dirk and Jeannie might even be able to stay at the firm, behaving themselves if they knew they were being watched and trusted.
The wolf punched his thighs. "This sucks, Sharon. This absolutely sucks," he growled softly.
"What do you mean?"
No sense getting into a philosophical discussion of society. "Just...the way things work in the world. You get married, have kids like you're supposed to, and your wife gets busy with another investment banker on her same floor. She comes home to me and she's perfect. But that's after Dirk. You think that'll change?"
"You want it to be like it was before?"
"If I could, yeah, but that's not going to happen."
"Regrets are things we can't get rid of. It's part of our moral compass. They're supposed to make us feel like shit so we don't do it again." Sharon sat up next to the wolf, drawing the blankets over her chest as if to emphasize her point. Russell's groin remained bare; for him it was all but moot.
"I guess I suppose it's a good thing we feel this way, or else we'd be even worse off," the wolf said with a wry half-smile.
Sharon turned to him, her breath warm and tickling in his ear. It had become a lot less sexy over time. "It means we're alive. And if I went around every day obsessing about every little thing I do, or did, I would go insane very quickly."
"Yeah, you got a point."
"People make mistakes. I...I'm just as much to blame for--us--as anything. If we can all agree to share responsibility, that should make it easier, right?"
"In theory. In practice is another thing. But we won't find out until we tell them, will we?"
"It'll take all of us to make it work. we've got so much combined, we really have no choice."
Russell turned to face the cheetah, whose face was mildly creased but still an endearing feature. It dominated her personality, especially the two racing stripes that doubled as convenient tear canals. There had been nights like that, too. "You should run for President," he admonished.
"I've already got the infidelity down," Sharon said, and she smiled a little. Somehow everything she had just explained to him made more sense than it had when she had been speaking the words. "It wouldn't work out, though."
"Why's that?"
"I was born in Alberta."
When Russell leaned in to kiss her, it was because he wanted to, not because he was trying to move the mood along for once. And when she kissed back, it did have genuine passion. Not necessarily the passion of a rekindled romance, or of a lover renewed; it was more like of a person who knows it's over for good but not because the intimacy is dead. Going out on a high note. The wolf was happy to know he wouldn't miss those lips.
A heavy clunk and a shout came through the wall, and they both jumped. Russell flushed, not from the embarrassment, but from knowing the walls were much thinner than he had thought given the quality of materials inside Sharon's condo.
"What was that?"
"Mrs. Ebenstein from next door. She must have fallen; I'd better check on her." As Sharon rolled off the bed with obvious catlike grace and grabbed her robe, the wolf tossed on the boxers that had been discarded earlier.
"Do you need me for anything?" he asked.
Sharon shooshed him away with her hand as she turned the corner into the front hallway. "Not unless I can't move her; just stay inside. God, clumsy woman." But as she opened the door, she yelled out, "Jesus Christ, you scared me!"
"I'm sorry, honey," came an elderly voice, presumably from Mrs. Ebenstein herself. As Russell listened from just around the corner, he noted she sounded out of breath and alarmed. "This is terrible, so terrible. How are you doing?"
"Fine, why?"
"You haven't seen it? Oh, my God, go turn on the television! Like the apocalypse, it is! This world's going to pieces; my Harvey would have had an infarction, if he were still living, bless his soul. Oh, Sharon honey, I'm so sorry. I've got to check up on Ethel upstairs; her boy Carl was up there too!"
"Up where, Mrs. Ebenstein? What's going on?" Sharon's voice gained volume as she ended her sentence. "God dammit! She ran off," she said as she whirled around the corner.
"What was she talking about? Does she have dementia or something?" It was funny how a simple change of subject and pace had set their conversation back to the way it used to be, before everyone was cheating.
"No, she's sharp as a tack and she lets you know it. She said it was on TV, though; it's gotta be big." Sharon turned on the set as Russell finally joined her in the bedroom, slightly out of breath from the excitement just as much as the quick walk there. They heard a voice before the picture appeared.
"...into the plaza and everywhere. You can't really see much of lower Manhattan through this thick cloud of debris, and we've been informed that power is out in much of that part of the city. Reports from near the scene have emergency and fire vehicles just decimated..." And when the screen finally flickered on, Russell was surprised at the lack of emotion he felt. He wanted to feel something, but processing it was a near impossibility. Sharon was just as quiet.
The buildings were on fire, smoke and flames shooting from their upper floors to be carried off by the breeze coming off the Hudson River. Paper rained down like confetti onto streets powdered with a dust the most sickly color of grey.
"...looking at are pictures from earlier today, after the second plane struck. A call went out immediately to all responders, who rushed to the scene and immediately began climbing up both towers..."
Sharon stared at the screen, and the wolf looked over at her. This was a moment, he thought. His heart pounded in the back of his head. He knew everything in that moment, it seemed, and there was no need to react the way everyone in lower Manhattan had. The cheetah's mouth hung slightly open; she grabbed his right elbow. "That's the, uh, the place..."
"Yeah, it is." the wolf brought his free hand around to hold hers, and went back to the picture on the television.
"...trying to find a way down a stairwell on the other side of the building, away from the destruction. Dispatchers on the ground heard they had broken through just minutes before the north tower appeared to collapse on itself, at around 10:41. There is still no telling how many people were trapped on the upper floors when this occurred, but rescue efforts are underway as we speak..."
Russell watched it, he saw it, but there was nothing to feel. He wanted to, really wanted to, but he just could not make himself. This wasn't apathy at all. Sharon gasped wetly, her grip murderously tight on his arm as they watched the spear of the north tower topple into the structure and come crashing down into the middle of screaming businessmen and mothers, aspiring actors and swearing Italian cabbies. Watched the top of the second tower send out a plume of flame before it disappeared. Watched the anchor say this had happened while they had been having sex, while he had talked dirty to her, while she had begged for his cock, while he had filled her with a love they both knew was false from the beginning.
"Wuh, w-which floor do they work on, Russ?" Sharon's grip was significantly weaker than before, which was a relief from his arm but not nearly enough. He walked her to the bed and sat her down. He knelt and felt her head, his own swimming with fever and his own pulse. She was warm, staring into space, something the wolf knew he couldn't do if he was to go on living.
"Um, ninety-six, in the north tower. On the same floor. It's how they met."
"Yeah," the cheetah muttered, pushing a lock of loose hair from her eyes. Then she looked at him with eyes that were fairly dry but looked a hundred years old. "Is your phone on?"
It wasn't, but Russell dug it out of his pants with numb fingers. The thing couldn't have turned on quick enough, and he fought the urge to dial voicemail before the icon came up. A second later it was up at his ear, and he was fighting a palsy shake while entering the PIN.
You have one new message.
First message.
"Russ? Russ, it's me, um, I, uh, it's about ten fifteen. Some, something happened and I don't know what, the building exploded oh my God and there's fire everywhere! I didn't think to call till now it's all just insane...Dirk's gone, I know he's gone, he was on the other side of the building and it was just gone, I couldn't breathe and we all got into the stairwell and, um, we can't go down but we're gonna go to the roof and stay there. I don't know what happened but they say there's helicopters or something...I just wanna come home, I'm so scared I wish your phone was on but I'll just wait here and somebody will come I just know they will. Tell the kids I'm okay, okay? I love you. Oh, my God..."
End of message. To save, press one. To erase, press seven.
Russell pressed one. The call ended. His phone said 10:47. Nineteen minutes too late. He knew what he had been doing nineteen minutes ago.
"Was it Jeannie?" The wolf looked up to see Sharon at the window, her hand parting the curtain just enough to see outside. They were in Midtown; the bedroom faced south. He came behind her and looked out just above her head. Everything past Chambers Street was clouded in that ubiquitous dust. Sharon's muzzle was stained with silent tears; her eyes were an absolute mess. He wasn't going to tell her, not now, not yet. There might never be a time. Like she didn't know the ultimate truth anyway. It was forty blocks away, in plain view.
"Yeah, it was. Um, she called about half an hour ago."
"Dirk didn't call. My phone was on. Was he with her?"
"I don't know." The wolf swallowed hard, but his heart never moved. Not one iota. He stood his ground, his hand around her hip, doing nothing more than he could manage. Still nothing about Jeannie. He just couldn't think about it. And he was glad.
"Um, what--" she shuddered violently, and Russell caught her. "What do we do now?"
Staring out the window but not really seeing, the wolf mumbled, "I've got to pick up the kids from school. I don't know...I don't know what they're doing."
Sharon was quiet. The city was quiet. The skies were quiet. That same ponderous, abstract weight was everywhere now.
"Can I come with you? I, uh, I don't want to be alone right now. Is that okay?"
"Yeah, you can. We should probably hurry."
"Yeah, yeah. Okay."
They gathered their clothes.
FIN 1/31/08