Read Inappropriate Behavior: Stories for Free Online Page B

hand to lower the visor, dropping the phone from my neck as I did. I managed to shift my hips and catch it in my lap, but not before swerving into the service lane, then swerving out against an angry, guttural horn blast from a semi to my left.
    â€œI’m just going out for a quick drink with some friends,” I shouted into my lap as Smith began a rightward move across traffic, some quarter mile ahead of me.
    â€œFriends?” Marcie’s voice came from the phone, dubiously.
    â€œSome of the guys from work.”
    â€œI wish you’d come home,” she said. “I have something incredible to show you.”
    I saw Smith exit onto Dunleavy. I swerved, said to Marcie, “I won’t be late,” then flipped the phone closed while executing a nifty move between a school bus full of band members and an SUV. I had to hurry, or Smith would get lost in side streets.
    When I got to the top of the exit onto Dunleavy, I saw Smith’s car turn into a strip mall six blocks down the road. At least he wasn’t going home yet. As badly as I wanted some answers, I wanted no part of Smith’s home life. There are things in this world you just can’t get out of your head, and Smith’s house, I knew, would be one of them.
    His car was parked in front of a Walgreens, so I parked nearby and went inside. I could imagine catching Smith in an aisle where you’d rather not be caught, perhaps foot care or fungicides or protective undergarments. But a fairly good look around the place brought no sign of Smith. I was approachedby a retarded boy in a blue smock who asked me if he could help me find anything. When I told him no, he moved on to someone else, a woman who said, “Yes, cough syrup,” at which point the retarded boy called someone to help the woman find cough syrup.
    I left Walgreens thinking Smith must be in another of the shops in the strip mall. But when I got to the parking lot, the gray Saturn was gone.
    Not knowing what else to do, I went home. On the way, now driving with the last of the sun at my back, I thought about how silly all of this was. That I would go chasing after Smith like some sort of madman, as if Smith had any answers, as if the incident I had witnessed even merited answers. I realized now that Schmelling’s antics in the parking lot were nothing more than that, antics, some sort of frat prank that he and his acolytes never outgrew, a symbolic thumbing of the nose at the IC and the conformity it bred, and if Smith and some of the others were a bit carried away by the whole thing, that was their problem, not mine.
    When I got home, Marcie was again very glad to see me. She met me at the door, already unclothed, and the next thing I knew, she was on her knees in front of me. When she finished, as I hung there, leaning against the front door to support my shaky legs, she took me by my limpening member and led me to the studio. There was the sketch, but now a full painting, finished and beautiful, maybe her best work yet. My face and white shirt were colored by the setting sun through the glass of the window, which she had somehow portrayed without showing any glass at all. My tie was an iridescent stripe of blues and greens and reds woven together to produce an effect of color the likes of which I’d never seen. My hand against the windowpane was the picture’s most stunning feature. I seemed from one angle to be waving; from another, I held up my hand as if to say, Stop! From still another, I was a startled man bracing himself against the glass, which, as I’ve said, was both there andnot there at once, which led to an even more eerie effect, that of a man trying not to fall as the building behind him leaned. I was completely carried away by the painting, so much so that I hadn’t noticed Marcie’s hand moving on me, working me back to a state of arousal. Before I could speak, Marcie dragged me to the ground and climbed on top of me,