The Conspiracy Club by Jonathan Kellerman Page B

something like it — sat next to him, drank wine, sidled closer, dimmed the lights. They began kissing deeply. Moments later, her robe fell open, and Jeremy was inside her.
    Being there brought him no tremor of triumph. On the contrary, he felt a cold wave of letdown course through him: She wasn’t moving much, didn’t seem
there
. He pumped away, hard, steady, detached, thinking irreverent thoughts.
    Maybe it’s the Chinese food.
    Maybe after five dates she feels obligated . . .
    Jocelyn had been . . .
    Opening his eyes, he looked down at her face. What he could make out in the ashy darkness was serene. Lying back, accepting him passively, as he thrust himself into her. Her eyes were clamped shut. Would they flutter open, sense his
objectivity
?
    He decided,
To hell with it, pleasure myself, and forgot about her
. The next time he looked down her face had changed. As if an internal switch had been flicked. Or she’d decided to come alive. Was she just one of those women who needed time — who the hell ever really knew about women? Now, she flipped her head to the side, grimaced, began grinding back at him. Gripped him with heels and hands and bit his ear and quickened her breathing to a hoarse pant as she tightened her pelvic vise and held him fast.
    Jeremy’s objective, disinterested hard-on became something else completely as she cupped his balls and kissed him and cried out.
    A shout — a bellow of pleasure — escaped from his mouth, and he collapsed, they both did, lying on the stinking couch, entwined.
    Later, when thoughts of Jocelyn crept into his head, he shooed them away.
     
     
    He drove home tingling below the waist. It was only later, hours later, lying fetally in his own bed, alone, aware of every detail in the room, that he allowed the twinges of guilt to temper his pleasure.
     
11
     
    T he day after making love to Angela, Jeremy paged her and drew her away from the wards and took her to his office. After locking the door, he reached under her skirt and placed her hand upon him. She whimpered, and said, “Really?” He rolled down her panty hose and her panties in one smooth swoop, and they connected standing against the door, intermittently aware of passing footsteps out in the corridor.
    As she clung to him, she said, “This is terrible.”
    “Should I stop?”
    “Stop and I’ll kill you.”
    They finished on the cold, linoleum floor. Angela dusted off her white coat and straightened herself, fluffed her hair and kissed him, and said, “I’ve got patients.” Her face grew sad. “Guess what, I’m on call for the next twenty-four.”
    “Poor thing,” said Jeremy, stroking her hair.
    “Will you miss me?”
    “Sure.”
    She placed her hand on her skirt, directly above the soft spot where he’d just filled her. “Will you do this to me again when I’m off call?”
    “
To
you?”
    She grinned. “Men do it to women, that’s what it is.”
    Jeremy said, “Again, as in here?”
    “Here, anywhere. God, I needed that.”
    “Put that way,” said Jeremy, twining her hair around his fingers, “you leave me no choice. Easing the schedule and all that.”
    She laughed, touched his face. Was off.
     
     
    Alone, Jeremy tried to work on his sensory deprivation book chapter but got little done. He went over to the doctors’ dining room for coffee. White coats got it for free, one of the few perks left, and he took advantage of it often. He knew he was swallowing way too much caffeine, but why not? What was there to be slow about?
    The room was sparsely occupied, just a few attendings taking time off between patients.
    And one whose patients didn’t talk back. Arthur Chess sat alone, at a corner table, with a cup of tea and an unfurled newspaper.
    Jeremy’s pathway to the coffee urn took him right into Arthur’s sights, but the pathologist gave no sign of recognition. Ignoring Jeremy — if he saw Jeremy at all.
    Jeremy found a table at the opposite end of the dining room, where he drank