I left not long after Succubus and Blue Eyes. Jim was asleep and snoring loudly and peacefully on the sofa. I covered him with a cozy afghan and placed a bottle of water within his reach. While Blue Eyes celebrated his physical conquest, Ulysses and I made our lonely way to my apartment, and I contented myself with mental pictures of their reunion lovemaking. It was a night with little sleep.
Jim called me early the next morning.
"Audra, I'm sorry to bother you – this is Jim," he stuttered.
"How's your hangover?"
"Abysmal. I have only a vague memory of the end of the evening. Can you help fill in the details?"
"Actually, Jim, I'm a little vague on the details myself. Haven't you talked with Blue Eyes?"
There was a pause on the line. "I'm a bit hesitant. Did he leave last night?"
"When I left, neither he nor Succubus were there, so I'm guessing he either left or evaporated."
"Succubus?"
"My pet name for Stacy."
Jim laughed painfully. "Right. You are wicked. Do you have any idea where they went?"
"To the moon, Jim."
"Oh, sh!t. I should probably clear out of here."
"Afraid they'll bring the party back to Blue Eyes' apartment?"
"Hang on," Jim said as he covered the phone.
I could hear muffled voices. Male voices.
"I'll call you back later, all right?" Jim asked quietly.
"Certainly."
Jim didn't call until much later that evening. He wanted to talk, so I gave him directions to my apartment. Ever the gentleman, he actually knocked on the door and waited for me to open it before entering. His rapid glance around registered his concern, but he smiled as he offered a Styrofoam container of cheesecake and a jug of mint tea. I thanked him and prepared servings for each of us. We settled on the futon, and my curiosity finally won out.
"Okay, Jim, start talking."
"I feel a bit of a traitor, you know."
"Cheesecake is perfect for salving guilty consciences."
"They went to Stacy's apartment. House assumed she had chosen him over Mark."
I had to interrupt him. "'Assumed?' Are you saying Stacy didn't choose Blue Eyes over Mark?"
"Apparently, she wasn't ready to commit to divorcing Mark. She thought House was mainly interested in sex and House thought he was mainly interested in sex . . ."
I wasn't breathing. Ulysses and I were suffocating. I had to force myself to inhale.
"But when it came time to do the deed . . ."
"Are you saying," I began in a hoarse whisper, "he had equipment failure?"
"More like he never got the key in the ignition."
I shook my head in confusion. The metaphors and analogies had me bewildered. "Think we can take a stab at speaking literally?"
Jim sighed. "House told you he had reunited with Stacy after she was married to Mark, right?"
I nodded.
"They had an affair – briefly. But House told her he couldn't make her happy and sent her back to Mark."
I continued nodding.
"Last night, when it came down to consummating the relationship again, House couldn't do it."
"Huh?"
"Here's what I think, Audra. Even though Stacy is 'separated' from Mark, they're still married, so nothing has really changed from before. If House were to have sex with her now, it would be no different than the affair he had two years ago. Maybe it's just an excuse, but he doesn't want to be her affair."
"He wants to be her husband?" I had stopped breathing again.
"I didn't say that. Audra, you're missing my point. He didn't have sex with Stacy. He spent the last couple of months wooing her, which goes totally against his nature, and as soon as she decided she wanted him, he said, 'Naw, never mind.' He doesn't really want Stacy. Of course, the challenge was a draw for him."
"Wait. If he doesn't want Succubus, what, or who, does he want?"
Jim shrugged. "I suspect he doesn't know. Yet."
"Is there a subtext to this, Jim?"
"Probably, but I was never good at literature."
"I'm not sure I buy Blue Eyes turning down sex. With an attractive woman.
Are you sure he wasn't lying?"
"No. Yes. I'm reasonably sure."
"Are you still drunk, Jim?"
"Hasn't it occurred to you he feels an attraction to you?'
I was evidently developing asthma. "It has occurred to me he pities me."
"Because you were raped?"
"Because my dissertation will never sell as a textbook."
Jim flapped his arms in a gesture of exasperation. "You're every bit as frustrating as House."
"Don't flatter me so."
"Audra, it's not necessary you tell House of, uh, this, okay?"
I nodded as he kissed me on the cheek preparatory to his exit.
"I'd like for us to keep in contact regardless of House, okay?" he asked sweetly.
I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck before he could straighten up. "Yes, please," I whispered against his neck.
He put his arms around my shoulders and squeezed me tightly before quickly releasing me. He backed away from the futon and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and I studied the hem of my blouse.
Finally, he coughed and said, "I'll call you soon."
I nodded, and he slipped into the evening.
The door hadn't been closed but a few minutes when the door knob rattled. I jumped up and pulled it open. "The belly drew you back," I said in a teasing voice as I peered into the startled gaze of Blue Eyes.
"Of course. I've been dreaming of doing an insanely pregnant woman since I was twelve." He walked past me, sat in my place on the futon, and started eating my piece of cheesecake. "Why was Wilson here?"
"You were spying on us?"
"Do pregnant women, as a rule, lose their hearing, because I don't remember that from med school? I repeat, why was Wilson here?"
"Are you attracted to me?"
He cocked his head as he looked at me; I was still standing by the door. "Is Wilson attracted to you?"
"Do assholes, as a rule, lose their hearing?"
"Do all southern women refuse to answer questions?"
"Yes. Every dammed one of us."
I sat in my desk chair and fidgeted with my hair. His long face was pale with dark circles under his eyes. He needed sleep. In between bites of cheesecake, he retrieved two pills from his shirt pocket and swallowed them with some of the tea in my glass.
"How long did you stay at my apartment last night?"
"Let me think. You and Succubus made out in the hall and then left to have sex, and Jim passed out on the sofa; since I couldn't get drunk and no one showed up to f#ck me, I finally decided to come on home around midnight so I could masturbate with my showerhead. Anything else intensely personal I can share with you?"
"If Wilson hadn't passed out, he'd have f#cked you."
"Get out, you son of a b!tch!" I screamed.
He never moved and never raised his voice. "Was it good – the showerhead, that is?"
"If you don't get out now, I will call the police."
"And tell them what? You opened the door and invited me in."
"And now I'm inviting you out."
He had finished my cheesecake and was starting on the remnants of Jim's.
"This is not a freaking restaurant. Quit eating and leave," I continued to screech.
Someone in an upstairs apartment yelled and there was accompanying thumping and knocking and the sounds of people running down halls and stairs. Blue Eyes got up and hobbled to the door and listened.
"You live in a f#cking lousy neighborhood."
"Damm, I wish you had pointed that out to me sooner. I have an idea – why don't you join those violent psychopaths running rampant in the halls? You'd fit right in."
He made it back to the futon. "I'm not leaving you alone while things are so chaotic. You're not safe."
I was apoplectic. "And who made you my keeper?"
"I owe it to Wilson to keep you in one piece until he can get a piece."
We were at a stalemate; he was parked on my futon and I was uneasily perched on my swiveling desk chair while the apartment wars raged loudly in the corridors. Blue Eyes finished the remains of Jim's cheesecake.
"Can you get me more of this tea?" he asked.
"Get it yourself."
He shrugged; then he limped to the refrigerator and refilled my glass with the mint tea. "Stacy finds you fascinating," he said when he returned to the futon.
"I advise you to stop talking," I said through clenched teeth.
"She thinks you have a bit of a crush on me." He grabbed the remote control and turned on the tv. "Oh, he!!, I forgot you only have the starter channels. And it would be Birkenstock Day on QVC. Damm!"
"What does Succubus know about who I'd have a crush on?" I asked heatedly.
"I told her you and Wilson had a mutual thing going, but she didn't believe me. She thinks you're too nasty for Wilson."
I felt my face grow red. "She thinks I'm nasty?"
"Oooh, reruns of 'The Daily Show!'" He grinned like an excited teenager. "She thinks there's something unsavory about a woman who, after being raped, would reject an abortion and, instead, give birth to the baby. Nasty." He shivered exaggeratedly.
"What?"
"She just can't understand why anyone would want to have a child without having any knowledge whatsoever about the father. Well, except for knowing the father was a violent pervert, of course."
I felt on verge of a stroke. "This is what she said?"
He continued in a modulated voice, "She was very curious about your reasons."
"You royal jackass. You're the reason I decided to keep Ulysses."
He turned from the tv screen with a look of surprise.
"Granted, the sprout's refusal to give up and just pass on through me had something to do with it, but you, you were the one who told me he was determined not to self-abort. You showed me the sonogram and told me he was 'stubborn,' that he was 'digging in his heels.' You made him real to me. You even joined me in calling him Ulysses."
He shook his head. "Oh, Christ." He put his head in his hands.
"If I'd lost him, I'd have dealt with it, certainly. But you allowed me to see Ulysses apart from the rape. And I want Ulysses. And I don't think that makes me the least bit nasty. In fact, I think it makes me bloody fantastic."
One of the ongoing quarrels escalated directly outside my apartment; something large banged into the door several times. Blue Eyes slowly got to his feet.
"Don't," I cautioned. He was looking at the door.
Several pops sounded. Bullets? A woman screamed and a car engine revved in the street. Blue Eyes turned off the apartment lights and pulled me against the wall beneath him.
"What . . ." I started.
"Hush, Mommy," he whispered against my hair.
He was crushing me, covering me, his chest pushing against mine. I was terrified. Ulysses was kicking between us.
"Does this go on every night?"
"Not every night," I whispered back.
He laid his cheek against by head. "You've gotta move."
"But the meth dealer has already promised to babysit for cold meds."
"Ahhh," he answered. "Now, there's an offer you can't refuse."
"Did Stacy really say I was nasty?"
"Actually, she said you were disgusting and needy and probably destined to be Wilson's fourth wife, but what does she know?"
"What do you think?"
"Oh, I think she's probably right."
With a little assistance from me, Ulysses shoved Blue Eyes backwards. "I think the excitement is over and you can leave now."
"But," he began.
"No buts. Go home, or to Succubus's, or to Wilson's – just go," I ordered as I pushed him to the door.
I opened it and he peered outside. All was quiet.
"See," I said, "all safe. Go." And I shoved him into the graffiti-ed hallway.
The week following Thanksgiving yielded a cornucopia of information. As it turned out, Blue Eyes had been pretty much correct about Dr. David Mebane. He had drafted a proposal for developmental classes to be taught online, and the university, before giving him the go-ahead with the project, wanted to see detailed lesson plans for the proposed courses. Because my online course had been creating a fair amount of positive buzz, he had logged into the website and stolen my study modules virtually verbatim to use for his course proposal. He had encountered a snag, however, because I only posted the modules a week in advance, and his proposal had to be completed two weeks before the end of the semester, which would leave him several modules short of a full course. Dr. Mebane thought he could seduce me, more or less, and get the missing modules from me to finish his proposal. And he was divorced, but he did have a son – a fifteen-year-old who lived in Ohio with his mother.
When I met with Dr. Jacobs and he told me of Dr. Mebane's failed proposal, he asked me if I was interested in completing it. My elation was almost uncontainable. Before I could stammer out my agreement, however, he offered a caution: "There is one concern I must address, Audra. David told quite a few people your pregnancy was the result of a rape. Now, we've never discussed the circumstances of your, er, situation, and it's certainly not my business, but the university would need your assurance that you would be able to properly head this program and give it the time and commitment it would require to be successful. And, obviously, we would not want any hint of a scandal to detract from this innovative online program."
I was happy with my online course, and I was happy teaching developmental composition classes to students who, for various reasons, struggled with basic writing skills. My online study modules had evolved as a result of my years of adjunct teaching at community colleges. I wanted the opportunity to turn them into a fully supported online program at a major university. My pregnancy not only should have been a non-issue; the how of my pregnancy wouldn't have been an issue had it not been for the big mouth of Blue Eyes. I gave Dr. Jacobs my word I could provide the study modules he needed for the online courses and that I could and would be able to direct the program while I pursued my doctorate. I also assured him my pregnancy was not the least bit scandalous.
The first of December, after a bit of thought, I called my brother. I wanted to be careful how I phrased my request, but I finally decided to just ask him.
"Hi, Cissy, how are you?" he answered the phone.
"Greg, I need a favor."
"Oh, he!!, what's wrong?"
"I need for you to recommend a lawyer here in New Jersey."
He was quiet for a few moments. "A lawyer for what, Cissy?"
"Don't ask any questions, Greg."
"Cissy, I can't refer you to anyone if I don't know what kind of lawyer you need, for goodness sakes."
"Hang on, puddin', let me finish. I'll tell you what kind of lawsuit I have to file, but I can't tell you the details until I see you for Christmas, okay?"
"Cissy, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you're sounding just the tiniest bit insane."
"Greg, I need to file a lawsuit against a lawyer for a HIPAA violation."
"A . . . oh f#ck, Cissy, are you sh!tting me? Damm!"
"I know you can suggest someone."
"He!!, yeah! That's almost in my area. Hot sh!t!"
"Whoa there, slick. I don't want to do anything but shut the doctor up."
"Cissy?"
"Just get me the lawyer's name, and I'll explain it all when I see you."
"I'll get you a lawyer and a moving van while I'm at it. You need to migrate a little further south."