His Last Wife

Val had never been a club girl. Not really. She’d partied a lot. Partied hard and all night long. Did splits and all kinds of tricks on speaker tops and bar tops and tabletops and even on a few poles here and there, but she’d never gone for a “good time.” For her it was work. From the right shoes to the right hair and scent of Tom Ford’s Black Orchid sprayed here and there and between this and that, going to the club was about finding the right man or the man next to the man to get to that man to get whatever she wanted at that moment. Now, that could range from attention to rent money, so the stakes were too high for any night out at the club to be considered a good time.

While Jamison’s publicist made Val swear off any of her old haunts when they’d gotten married and Val was supposed to be learning how to be a “respectable” first lady of Atlanta—a plan that included new wigs, less makeup, and more fabric above her nipples and below her knees—she’d found herself a returning customer during her newfound widowhood.

But like the bright lights and nightlife had changed, Val’s reasons for being there had changed too. It would be rather zealous to say she was no longer on a search for a suitable suitor—that could never be far from Val’s imagination, even with Jamison’s money in her hands. Still, her participation was less easy to define. It started with a drink. A reason to get out of the house. Out of that house. Away from her mother. Away from everything in her head. She’d follow her old routine. A long, hot shower. Hot shea butter on her skin. Black Orchid between her thighs and behind her ears. A dress so tight she couldn’t wear a bra or a thong. Legs out. Arms out. Hair down her back. Eyelashes batting. Lips puckered and glossy. A ride into the city with the windows down. A big tip for the valet. Saunter in with her vacant eyes straight ahead. No line outside to wait on. The bouncers know her. Sit at the bar in VIP with a drink that came in a small glass with no ice cubes.

“Hey, I’m Monty.”

It never took long after she was seated and had ordered a drink for someone to show up and take the seat beside her. That night after the meeting in David’s office about Coreen and the money, it was Monty.

Val just smiled over her shoulder at him. It was never a good idea to show any kind of attention that quickly.

Then the bartender came over and asked Monty what he wanted to drink and he requested something like a Gentleman Jack and Coke.

When the drink came, Monty reached out for the glass and Val, who’d been silent and only nodding along to the loud music, got a peek at his dated but respectable Rolex.

“You come here often?” he asked, noting to himself that Val had peeped the watch.

“No. Not really,” Val lied. She’d been there two times that week and to most of the clubs on that row in Midtown on the other nights. There was always a reason. Her mother on her nerves. Coreen on the phone. Kerry calling and worrying. The lawyers. David. Whatever.

“Funny, I thought I saw you here Monday.” Monty chuckled.

“Then why did you ask me a dumb-ass question, then?” Val snapped, finally looking over at Monty. He was brown and cute. Had deep dimples that probably could be annoying to look at sometimes.

“Hold on, boss lady!” Monty held up his hands like Val was about to hit him and she smiled. She could see the muscles in his forearms through his thin fall cashmere sweater. “Don’t hurt a brother. All these young things in here and I see something sophisticated like you at the bar and I want to know what’s up. I’m just trying to get to know you.” He surveyed Val’s plump torso resting in the seat.

“Ain’t much to know, I’m afraid,” Val said dismissively.

“Well, maybe I’m just trying to look at you, then.”

Val stared at Monty again and there were those dimples.

He peered into her and she nearly felt his eyes peel her shoulder straps down and her dress up. Later, there were more drinks and some laughs. Val loosened up some. Monty literally saw her shoulders fall and her frown dissipate. She told him nothing of herself and tried to seem disinterested whenever he spoke of himself. At one point a Jay Z song came on and she got up from her chair and started dancing really close on his lap. That was after he’d let it slip that he was a plastic surgeon and was opening a third clinic in Buckhead next year. She leaned back and let her Persian wavy weave fall on his chest, twerked her thighs in and out until his penis grew so stiff he could feel the blood vibrating in the tip as she bounced up and down.

“You’re turning me on,” he whispered in her ear and she blamed it on the alcohol. “What’s your name?” he asked again for the third or fourth time.

“Does it matter?” Val laughed and downed the last of her drink so quickly it made her throat burn and her chest hot. “Hey, you want to dance?” She just grabbed Monty’s hand and started pulling him toward the dance floor. They tunneled through a crowd of people ten to fifteen years younger than both of them. The

re were waitresses carrying buckets of champagne and vodka, outliers puffing marijuana. and little girls in heels so high they could hardly stand up straight.

Monty kept trying to pull Val back out of the party maze and smoke, but the more he pulled, the more Val protested, becoming more risqué and wild with her dancing. She’d pulled his arms around her waist and backed up against him on the dance floor. In the darkness, neon laser lights highlighted only slivers of her body.

“You fucking know you want this,” she teased in whispers beneath the booming hip hop music that Monty didn’t recognize at that point.

“You know that’s right,” he said in her ear. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Why you want to leave so bad?” Val snapped and her body suddenly became rigid and erect with no movement. She stood up straight in the middle of the dance floor and Monty felt she was about to make more of a scene.

“Oh, no, it’s nothing, bossy lady.” Monty put up his hands again and flashed his nicest smile. “We can dance some more!” He did a quick two-step that looked so out of place in the youthful crowd. He’d already told himself that the woman he’d been coming on to for over two hours when he could’ve been chasing some of the less bitter, scantily dressed targets around him would be some challenge; but somehow to a man like him, she’d be worth the extra energy in the end. There was that myth—the one about angry women in bed, how they’d be so forceful and wild. This made him look at Val like some kind of lioness with a broken paw. An animal whose behavior was at once unpredictable and all too predictable. Plus, he thought he’d recognized her from somewhere. And the alcohol muddying his thoughts convinced him that she must be a former model, maybe an old video girl he’d seen someplace before. That turned him on even more.

Val loosened up again and started dancing. The alcohol in her body made a mess of her thoughts, too. She wondered what the man’s name was who was rubbing his penis into her thigh. She couldn’t remember seeing her mother when she stopped at the house before leaving for the club. She tried to remember what Jamison’s hands looked like when he was the man dancing behind her. What was the shade of red on those bloody sheets on the bed? Why had her baby died? What happens after death? What was a woman? A man? How long could hurt last?

“Let’s go to the bathroom.” Val pulled Monty through the crowd again, but this time he didn’t resist at all. He felt around in his back pocket for a condom.

In the bathroom, Monty’s back was against the stall door and Val was undoing his pants. She hadn’t looked into his eyes once, but he’d caught glimpses of her icy stare on parts of him and somehow that thrilled Monty. He’d given a hundred dollars to the bathroom attendant to lock the door outside for twenty minutes.

Val kissed and sucked on his chest as she lowered his pants. She rimmed the tip of his boxers with her tongue and hummed into his middle so he could feel the promise of where her mouth was going next.

“Shit, you’re so fucking hot. I knew this was going to be good,” Monty said, like Val needed some of his encouragement and this thing was really about making him feel good.