The Dangerous Kind & Other Stories by Robert Chazz Chute Page B

nothing.
    She pushed herself up from the chair and disappeared. In a moment she returned with her purse. She pulled out a checkbook, all business. “How much would it take?”
    “A million dollars.”
    “Let me rephrase, Marcus. What do you owe in debts? What does it cost to buy you out of wage slavery?”
    “Serious?”
    “As a disease in your lymph glands.”
    “Maybe…I don’t know. Car payments…”
    “You in an apartment?”
    “Still.”
    “Would $100,000 do it?”
    “More than enough.”
    She paused, as if making calculations in her head. When she wrote the check, her smile broadened. He noticed it was a Mont Blanc pen.
    She folded the check and held it out. He didn’t hesitate a moment. He snatched it out of her hand and shoved the paper roughly into his shirt pocket. He knew he should be ashamed, but he felt nothing like shame. “Is this half what you pay your therapist?” he asked.
    “Roughly, I suppose, but after all that’s happened today I think I’m done with therapy. I’m tired of telling the story of my rotten childhood over and over and now that’s all anyone will want to talk about. I won’t need a therapist. I’ll just need to escape, like you.”
    “Where will you go?”
    “Someplace far away. I doubt I’ll be coming back.”
    “Then we’ll both finally escape. Thanks for coming back for me and getting me out.”
    “Don’t thank me. I need to thank you.” She paused. “It’s late.”
    Energized, he stood up and looked out the windows on the dark sea below. Beyond the Atlantic lay possibilities. Or he could drive west as far as the highway went. Then he could fly. Potential oozed over the horizons in every direction. 
    She stood and spun him around, holding him by the shoulders. “You know I hated this place. Every time my father left me with Uncle Joe, we did it—“
    “He did it to you.”
    “ Right. Anyway, that’s what he was really all about, no matter what he looked like to the world. The uniform didn’t mean anything. Every time we were alone, Joe would tell me how much he loved me. Every time he said, ‘Wrong is a fluid concept, Betty Jane.’ Blood didn’t mean anything. He did it for so long I’m not even sure I remember the first time. He wore a mask for everybody. I think everybody wears a mask, don’t you think?”
    He looked away and she grabbed his chin to make him look into her eyes. “This little village just about fucking killed me. I hated that everyone knew everyone and nothing ever changed. Everything was awful about this place…except you. We watched videos and later we went to the drive-in and we made out and your kisses were always sweet and you were always so gentle.”
    “I guess I always thought if I didn’t treat you like fine china you’d break…or I’d wake up from the dream.” And I wish I’d told you how much I loved you then , he thought.
    She held him tightly and he ached. It reminded him of the truth he would never tell. It wasn’t his ex-wife who compared herself to the nymph and movie star Asia Minor. It was he who made all the comparisons and had always found his ex-wife wanting. Now he felt her warmth, her breasts pressed to him, reminding him why he would never—could never—be as happy as he was as a teenager. Or could he?
    “You,” she whispered, “were the best thing about my childhood.” He turned his head to taste her full red lips again, too late. Instead, she kissed his cheek with a chaste smack that reminded him of kissing the bride at someone else’s wedding. Her kiss, so warm and soft, the sort of kiss he fell into in dreams, now felt like a sharp rebuke.
    They broke apart abruptly. He couldn’t wait to leave. Their reunion—which he had dreamed of, anticipated so long—now embarrassed him. “I better go.”
    “Okay,” she said. She looked away.
    “I’ve got to be on the air in another couple hours.”
    “Of course. Thanks for coming to see me. I love that you came to see me”
    “Yes,”