A Nasty Piece of Work by Robert Littell

self-employed estimated tax form—all you need to do is lick a stamp and mail it in. You can lick your own stamps? Mind if I use the loo?”
    I nodded yes. Kubra said, “Somebody there with you, Gunn?”
    “My accountant’s come by to do my paperwork.”
    “You mean your lady accountant. At this ungodly hour?”
    “She has three clients in Hatch. The manager of the roller-skating rink. The guy who runs this mobile park. And me. I was the last but not least on her appointed rounds, which is why she stopped by a bit late.”
    I could hear Kubra—how can I describe this?—chortling. “Maybe you’re less of a prig than I thought,” she said.
    I suddenly needed to get something off my chest. “Pay attention, Kubra. Hang on my every word. Wherever you’re at, however old you are, your best years are ahead of you. And don’t you ever forget it.”
    I heard her awkward silence. Then, “You’re talking to yourself, aren’t you, Gunn?”
    She was a smart cookie. “I’m talking to the both of us, little lady.” I changed the phone to the other ear. “Bye,” I said. “Have a good weekend on your island.”
    “Bye-bye, Gunn of my heart,” she said. “Have a good night.”
    Smiling to myself, I put on another Nat King Cole 33 and moseyed into the galley alcove to deposit the empty beer bottle into the garbage pail. There was a half-empty wineglass on the Formica table, along with a battery-powered adding machine. But no France-Marie.
    “France-Marie?” I called.
    When she didn’t reply, I made my way aft, past the head, to the bedroom. The door was ajar. France-Marie was stretched out naked on my bed, her red hair enticingly splayed across one of my pillows. She watched me watching her. “Don’t just stand there, honey,” she said. She had left her accountant’s voice in the kitchen alcove. “Come to beddy-bye.”
    I’m old school when it comes to intercourse, sexual and otherwise. France-Marie and I had made love maybe a dozen times; she’d slept over twice before. She obviously expected to spend the night tonight. What could I say to let her down easily? Nothing occurred to me and I didn’t want to bruise her ego, so I stripped to the skin and climbed in alongside her. She rolled onto me, pressing the length of her generously endowed body against mine, kissing me on the lips and the side of my neck, nibbling on an earlobe, sucking on one of my nipples, all the while caressing my genitalia, which couldn’t have cared less about bruising the ego of an occasional lover.
    France-Marie stopped abruptly. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing’s wrong. I’ve had a hard day is all.”
    She went back to caressing my organ, feather-light strokes with the tips of the fingers of her left hand. I tried to summon an erection. I even resorted to subterfuge—I ordered up an image of the butter-colored sleeveless blouse plastered against several of Ornella Neppi’s very spare ribs. Turned out I had as much control over my erections as I did over Kubra when she had her heart set on a weekend with her boyfriend.
    France-Marie weighed my wilted weed in her hand. “There’s someone else, isn’t there?”
    I took a deep breath. “I met a girl,” I admitted.
    “Have you slept with her?”
    I shook my head. “We had dinner. She kissed me on the lips in the parking lot.”
    France-Marie rolled off me to her side of the bed and pulled the sheet and light blanket over both of us. “Men,” she said. “Who understands their music? Certainly not me. At least you’re honest, unlike my ex.”
    I slipped my arm under her and pulled her closer so that her head was nestling into my shoulder. “Me neither, I don’t understand me,” I said. “You’re a fine woman, France-Marie.”
    After a while she whispered, “I’m not going to play second fiddle.”
    “I’d never ask you to.”
    France-Marie listened to me breathing. I listened to her listening. I heard the bedside clock ticking away the minutes for the first time