8.
 Charlie was alone in the dining room with Steve. "Where's Marie?"
"She's not feeling well just now," Steve said introspectively as he stepped about lighting dinner candles. Steve resembled her but in a crisp masculine way. He took care of himself, you could see, had a flat belly. His trousers were spotless, and kept a crease. His shirt was dark, subdued, green/black like a hedge of fine leaves. "Don't worry," Steve said, "she'll deliver."
Charlie flushed. "Smells delicious," he said eyeing potatoes, green beans, breaded steaks.
"Thank you," Steve said, a first glimmer of smile lighting his preoccupied features.
There was a yell somewhere. "What was that?" Charlie asked.
Steve shrugged. "Probably Marie. Here, let's start eating."
"What's she doing?" Charlie asked, as he and Steve passed back and forth bowls of this and that.
"Tending to our children," Steve said.
Charlie felt a twinge. So far, he hadn't questioned anything. One read about swingers and such. He was prepared to go along with anything on the program, as long as it somehow ultimately would lead to his kissing Marie's breasts. Until this moment, he'd felt no compunctions about sharing dinner with a man whose wife he was about to share. But children? "Children?"
Steve dabbed his lips with a napkin. He sipped some wine. "Sure. We have several."
"Hm," Charlie said, "haven't seen them around."
Steve smiled broadly. "We don't advertise."
"Oh." What a strange thing to say. "Do they go to private school or something?"
Steve nodded. "Very private."
"That's nice." As Charlie ate, the chewing made his jaws sound odd in his ears, just bones muffled by rather gristly muscles and tendons, right? It was that quiet in the room. Pleasant though. All lavenders and pretty colors. Soft music, piano with hiss suppression, Bartok, Satie. The clock tick, ticked pleasantly, no doubt a well-jeweled expensive works inside its crystal and china body. The room was almost female but not quite, actually more androgyne like Steven and Marie. "What do you do?" Charlie asked.
"What do you mean?" Steve stopped chewing.
They stared at each other.
"At work," Charlie said with flushed cheeks.
"I'm a poet."
Charlie gave a single chew, then stopped again. "Really." Not a big demand for that.
Steve carefully marshaled all his potato bits together in a central pond of gravy. "It's an important job. Someone has to do it. And our people take care of me."
Your people? Charlie was going ask, but somewhere Marie screamed. A ragged, short bellow, like someone having a dressing changed. He remembered her bandage of months ago. Remarkable how that had healed. "Is she okay?"
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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