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with this guy at her job.”
    “Aw. Lot of that going around.”
    “Ever since women have had jobs.”
    “That’s so sad. That it happened to you, not that women have jobs. How long ago?”
    “Recently.”
    Patrice took to the sofa and I sat on a red leather chair. She looked at the Domino’s Pizza door hanger decidedly, then set it down on the coffee table and nodded.
    I asked, “Was that on my door?”
    “I brought it for you. Hopefully you can use it.”
    I offered her tea and she accepted. I had hoped for the opposite. While I heated water she told me the
Reader’s Digest
version of her life’s story. I nodded a lot and three minutes later I handed her tea and honey. She was twenty-five with a degree in something useless and said that she was stressed out about her irrelevant job, a job that she both hated and was afraid to lose, a job that burdened her with the drudgery of repetition, doing the same menial task eight hours a day. Mrs. Patrice Evans was married to a thirty-two-year-old guy who worked his fingers to the bone doing something that was as profitable as selling ice during a deep freeze in Alaska.
    We sipped teas and I chewed on cookies and she smiled at me a lot. She would smile at me, look away, look down at her feet, check her watch, and suck on her bottom lip, thinking.
    I smiled and said, “These cookies are very good.”
    She smiled. “I used my mother’s recipe.”
    Before she could question me, I decided to question her. “Where are you from?”
    “Pensacola. I was working at the Seville Diner when I met Ted and moved here.”
    Patrice walked to one of my vitrines and stared through its glass at my novels. I had unpacked hundreds of books and DVDs before I had unpacked any of my clothing. I still had some clothing in the living room, across dining room chairs. Patrice looked at those and nodded.
    She said, “Versace. Ferragamo. Carlo Milano. You have good taste.”
    She strolled into my kitchen and looked at the GNC bottles I had on the counter. Arginine 5000. Force Factor Ramp Up. Nitro Muscle Mass and Mojo Blast. 8-Hour Sex.
    She smiled, picked up the RockHard Weekend and read the package. “All natural. Works in thirty minutes. The seventy-two-hour sexual performance enhancer for men.”
    She said that her husband couldn’t please her the way she needed to be pleased. I didn’t say anything. Then she corrected herself and shook her head, gritted her teeth, and said that her diabetic husband didn’t please her the way that she
deserved
to be pleased.
    She looked at me, checked me for a reaction.
    I offered her a small smile.
    She grinned. “I don’t have a lot of time.”
    “To work out.”
    “No, I don’t have a lot of time to get my cardio in. But other than that, I’m very business-minded. I like to get to the point. Do you mind if I show you something?”
    “Sure.”
    With that, she stepped away and went inside the bathroom.
    In that moment flashes of Johnny Handsome being inside my wife corrupted my smile.
    Mrs. Patrice Evans came back out naked.
    After I adjusted to the surprise I said, “Looks like your clothes fell off.”
    “Lot of gravity in your bathroom. Pulled everything right off me.”
    I evaluated her and nodded. “You’ve kept yourself in shape.”
    “Basketball and track and tennis. So. Yes or no?”
    Revenge, the need for revenge grabbed me, squeezed my heart until it wanted to burst.
    I said, “Yes.”
    Mrs. Patrice Evans came to me and we kissed. She sucked my tongue as if it were her vagina tightened around my penis, sucked and pulled at my clothing, took off my T-shirt.
    She took my hand and hurried me into my bedroom, led me as if I were inside her home.
    She said, “I’m not big on chitchatting. Actually chitchatting bores me to tears.”
    I rubbed her breasts, her belly, and her shoulders. Her skin was beautiful, its texture smooth. She was not as stunning as Regina Baptiste, but her body, the skin and flesh that people judged as being more