His Third Wife

“Don’t do that—don’t—” he requested, but there was no real will in his words, no command. It was a soft whine that Val appreciated. It reminded her of where she might be in control.

Val squatted down and made an obtuse pyramid of her knees with Jamison’s skinny naked legs in between.

Jamison looked up at the ceiling and slowly rolled his eyes closed as the warmth of Val’s mouth made him erect. He held his hands at his waist like he was being fitted for a new suit.

He thought he was saying “don’t” again, but the only sound in the room was coming from his cell phone ringing hysterically on the counter.

Val moved her hands in long strokes up the sides of Jamison’s thighs and groaned like she stood to gain something of physical pleasure from the oral reward of a desperate new wife trying to make love make love.

As Jamison’s breathing slowed, Val’s movements became quicker, more sporadic.

He sighed and tried to back away. But then his heart quickened and suddenly his breath came harder and fuller. All ties to the world left his brain and the blood moved so quickly from his head he felt it zap at his heart. He nearly teetered onto Val but caught his balance and tried to steady himself by opening his eyes.

And there, standing on the other side of the closed kitchen door, looking through the glass window, was a pale face that at first glance looked like a ghost.

“Shit,” Jamison yelled and he jerked back so quickly he almost fell over in the trap of his pants.

“What?” Val followed his eyes and turned to the door too as she got up. She wiped her mouth and squinted at the prying eyes before walking out of the kitchen.

“What the fuck?” Jamison wrestled his pants up on the way to open the door. “Man, what the fuck?”

Leaf walked in, holding his cell phone out. “I’ve been calling!”

“That doesn’t give you the right to roll up on my house like that, man! Me and my—We—Man, what the fuck?”

“I couldn’t reach you. We had a meeting scheduled with the Rizzolis and when you didn’t show there, I figured you’d be at St. Philip or First Iconium in East Atlanta.”

“I know. I know,” Jamison admitted, letting Leaf inside the kitchen. “I was fucked up last night. Slept in my car. I was going to call you when I got back on my feet.”

“No problem,” Leaf said coolly. “You make messes; I clean them up. I told everyone you were ill but wanted to send me ahead to apologize for your absence in person. They ate it up.”

“Good. Good.”

“But that’s nothing. Right? We have bigger trout in our pond right now,” Leaf said excitedly.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, ‘What do you mean?’? I’m talking about Ras,” Leaf said.

“Ras?” Val reentered the kitchen with her brown bob “mayor’s wife” weave back in place and calmly joined Leaf and Jamison around the large island in the kitchen.

“Good morning, Mrs. Taylor,” Leaf said formally with a hint of placation in his voice. “I certainly apologize for my intrusion.”

“No problem, Leaf,” Val said. “What about that skank Rasta?”

“Val, stop calling him a—” Jamison ordered.

“Wait, you two haven’t heard about last night? You don’t know?” Leaf looked from Jamison to Val and back.

“Know what?” Jamison asked.

“It’s all over the news. It’s everywhere,” Leaf half-answered.

Val and Jamison reached for the little gray television remote at the same time. Val got it first and clicked on the forty-two-inch screen hanging beside the dishwasher. The television was parked on the cooking channel Lorna watched as she cleaned the kitchen. Jamison told Val to turn to Fox. As she clicked, Leaf started with pieces of the headline.

“They raided his house early this morning,” Leaf reported, and then there was a picture of Ras on the screen. “They found guns

. A lot of guns.” Leaf looked at Jamison. “You know anything about that?”