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me about her.”
    “ Hmm, I tend to
agree.”
    “ What, that she looks like
a skank?”
    “ No. That something
doesn’t seem right. She doesn’t come across to me like the grieving
mother. And by the way, while you were on the phone with Dominic,
Lionel Brewbaker took me aside and expressed concerns about her. I
think he was trying to implicate her in the kidnapping.”
    “ Noooo!”
    “ I think. Maybe we should
invite them both downtown and have them come in to take a
polygraph.”
    “ I would.”
    “ So, are you going to call
her?”
    “ Amanda?”
    “ No. Your girlfriend. You
said you were going to cancel your date with her.”
    “ Oh, sure, I’ll call. You
know. Soon.”
    “ Yeah, well I have to
cancel dinner with Lilith, too. Only I’m not going to call. I’m
going to go home and tell her to her face. It’s the only way she’ll
believe me.”
    “ Why’s that?”
    “ You know Lilith. The
first thing she’ll do is pull me aside, drill into my eyes with
that penetrating stare of hers, reach down deep somewhere into my
soul and rip the truth out of me.”
    “ Sheesh, Tony. Are you
sure you don’t want to just call?”
    I pointed out the side window. “Hang a right
here and take me home. This won’t take a minute.”
    We got to the house and I asked Carlos to
wait for me in the car. I figured if Lilith saw him sitting out
there with the motor running, she’d give me less grief and let me
get out of there sooner rather than later.
    Things had changed a lot since we got
married. Not so much because we got married, but because Ursula and
Spinelli got married at the same time we did. Or maybe Lilith and I
married when they did. Doesn’t matter. The important thing was that
when Ursula and Spinelli married, Carlos bought them a house, and
now Lilith and I have our house all to ourselves. Consequently,
that means she and I are free to have sex whenever we want. Nobody
roaming the halls, walking into rooms without knocking. The fact we
can run around naked, taking advantage of life’s spontaneous
moments, has allowed us to enjoy more of those moments than ever
before. This is why I remain so suspicious of Lilith when she
presses me to participate in her so-called consummation ritual.
After all the spontaneity we engaged in, I would think she would
have called it even and let it go at that. But she hasn’t.
    I walked in the house and knew immediately
something was up. Lilith’s forest sounds CD was playing in the
background, crickets chirping, owls hooting, brooks babbling. It’s
a real mood setter if you’re getting ready to make love under the
stars with a soft campfire crackling nearby. She had those things
as well. Her campfire was the fireplace. Split-oak logs snapped and
hissed on the fire irons, still too wet for smoke-free flames. Her
stars were specs of pin light cast upon the ceiling by a lamp whose
shade she covered with a black cloth and peppered with a shotgun
blast.
    The incense was her usual mix of jasmine and
cinnamon, a blend that stirs the mind as well as the hormones.
Least that’s been my experience.
    I shut the door and called her name.
    “ Lilith?”
    I don’t know how, but she snuck up behind me,
covered my eyes with her hands and kissed me on the back of the
neck. “Guess who?” she cooed.
    “ Ursula?”
    That earned me a slap on the head. “Guess
again.”
    “ Lilith.” I smiled, turned
around, and slipped my arms around her waist. She was naked, except
for a silk g-string that evaded my touch as I slid my hands down
her cheeks. She laced her fingers around my neck, rocked up on
tiptoes and kissed me on the lips. I kissed her back, forgetting
all about the words we had earlier that chased me out of the house
and sent me to the office.
    “ You want to?” she
said.
    I smiled teasingly. “I always want to.”
    “ Then come. The candles
are ready.”
    “ Candles?” She took me by
the hand and led me down the hall. “Oh, now wait a minute,” I
said.
    We stopped at