Hot Properties by Rafael Yglesias Page A

but the magic would come at last and transform the careful movements into inspired grace.
    “Uhhh,” she let out, and he knew it would be soon. His hands lightly touched her sides as he ran them up, gripping her armpits with his thumbs, and squeezing as if she were a doll. This worked for him—his thrusts deepened. He was really in the ocean now, stroking mightily toward the shore of release, sweat bursting from him, his limbs stretching with every move, his back arching, his head bobbing and surfacing like a dolphin at play.
    He pushed his hand down between his member and her hard knob to emphasize the point. For a moment this interrupted their dance—and then she lifted, from the hips, off the bed, and they united, sweating, groaning, their mouths open and yearning, as they took their long sweetly agonizing swim together, thudding on the sand as one, exhausted by their happy exercise.
    “Oh, you’re crazy,” Fred complained. “That’s just bullshit.”
    Marion reached past him and pulled the clock radio toward her. The force of the cord coming up made the night table teeter.
    “Jesus!” Fred grabbed the table to steady it.
    “It’s two-thirty. Fred. I have to be up at seven.”
    “I don’t know how you can sleep—”
    “I never have any trouble sleeping.”
    “I don’t mean that. I’m churning inside. You think I don’t find you attractive when all I want is to make love—”
    “You don’t want to make love. You want to come inside me.” She slammed the clock radio back down and stepped over him, out of bed.
    Fred stared at her as if he had been slapped. “What are you saying?”
    Marion left the room.
    He paused a moment to consider whether it might be safer and saner if he didn’t pursue what had already become an ugly marathon of miscommunication. But he was juggling in his mind a variety of tormenting thoughts: did she mean he was lousy in bed? Maybe she didn’t want to have sex as often as he? Maybe she didn’t love him anymore? What was it? For Fred, this was as maddening as not being told who committed the murder in a suspenseful thriller. He got up and followed Marion.
    He found her sitting on one of the kitchen chairs placed beside a window that caught a partial view of the East River. The musty glow of New York’s streetlamps provided a silhouette of Marion. Her face looked tight, as if she were holding back tears. He noticed this, but it only spurred his desire to interrogate her. For Fred, great emotion in another person was like a bone to a trained retrieving dog; off he went, his hind legs powering him forward through thickets of dialogue to find his marrow of truth.
    “Honey, let’s talk about it,” he said. His attempt to say this calmly made his voice whiny.
    “Fred, I don’t feel well. I want to be left alone. Can’t you do that?” She turned to face him and he got a look at her staring eyes, big with welling tears.
    He sighed. He told himself to turn around and go, but his feet felt flat and glued to the floor. The oddest thing was that he still had his erection, though it didn’t feel pleasurable at the moment. “I love you,” he said.
    She snorted with disgust and helplessness.
    “What’s wrong with that! I can’t relax if you’re not happy. I have to know what’s bothering you. It’s eating me up inside.”
    “Fred, I worked all day to cook a huge meal for your friends—”
    “They’re your friends too—”
    “If you must know, they’re not friends to either of us. It was like doing business tonight. This evening wasn’t any more fun than a business lunch. I get plenty of them during the week. Goddamm it, I just don’t feel like making dinner to help your career and then spreading my legs to top it off.”
    Fred’s mouth opened in the middle of Marion’s speech and remained so for several seconds afterward. She had begun to cry while she spoke, and now, biting her lips to try to stop, she was sobbing. He felt as if light had illuminated the dingy