Bad Apple by Anthony Bruno

eyes, and a Roman nose. She tended to look mad a lot of the time, but that was just her normal expression. She was slender, about five-five, five-six, somewhere in her early-ish thirties, and she always wore slacks. Never a dress or a skirt, from what Tozzi had seen. Today it was black slacks and black patent-leather flats with a silky banana-yellow top under a green satin bomber jacket. Tozzi thought she looked sharp, very tailored but still hip. But the onetime he’d told her he thought she was very attractive, she told him he was full of shit and said she looked like John Lennon in drag, complaining that her breasts were too small and her can was too big, daring him to agree with her. Tozzi knew better than to fall for that one.
    Tozzi sat there and watched her unpack the groceries. He didn’t dare say anything even vaguely nice, like hello, because he knew what her reaction would be. Besides, Mike Santoro was a slime-bucket pornographer, so he couldn’t be polite or anything. Anyway, he’d already tried and failed with her on their one-afternoon stand when she’d refused to believe that he thought she was attractive.
    It had been one of those incredible warm but colorful fall days when the leaves have already begun to turn, but it’s still sunny and lazy like the end of August, a day plucked out of time, the kind of day when you want to do something wild because you think days like this don’t really exist on anybody’s real-life calendar so whatever you do will be your secret.
    One of Gina’s cousin’s kids was getting baptized that day, and Freshy had invited him to the ceremony and the party afterward. Tozzi never made it to the party because while the baby was screaming its lungs out as the priest poured holy water over its little head, he and Gina had been flirting like crazy. She didn’t know he was into porn. As everyone left the church, Gina started walking back to her apartment instead of following everyone to her cousin’s house for the party. Tozzi followed her, and it was like one of those wonderfully horny dreams you wish you’d never woken up from. She strolled nice and slow, zigzagging down the sidewalk, stirring the orangy yellow leaves, sneaking glances back at Tozzi. Tozzi stayed about three car lengths behind her, watching the spears of sunlight pierce the falling leaves and shine through her loose light-brown hair. When theygot to her apartment building, she stopped and turned around and just looked at him, grinning a sly little grin, waiting for him to do something. He sauntered up slowly. Even though they didn’t know each other that well, they both knew what they wanted, except neither one was ready to make the first move. Then he started to laugh, and she started to laugh, and pretty soon they were hysterical, out of control, howling like a couple of lunatics.
    â€œYou wanna come up for coffee?” she asked, brushing tears out of her eyes.
    â€œSure,” he said.
    â€œOr would you rather go back to the party?”
    â€œNo thanks.”
    She shook her head. “Me neither.” The way her hair shushed over her shoulders made him dizzy.
    Her apartment was small and functional. Bare wood floors and blinds. No curtains, no knickknacks, no flowers. Just a lot of framed black and white photographs of laughing kids on the walls. She said she’d taken them herself.
    Tozzi sat down on the couch, threw his arm over the back, and watched her make coffee.
    â€œDon’t do that,” she said with a self-conscious grin.
    He moved his arm. “What?”
    â€œDon’t look at me. Look at something else.”
    Tozzi shrugged. “If it bothers you.” He turned sideways and stretched out on the couch. Orange sunlight slanted in through the casement windows and encased Tozzi’s feet and face in blocks of warmth. He closed his eyes and almost fell asleep. Then he thought of her.
    He squinted up through the sunlight to